


Geek is the new chic - Agent 00Q

by CMDAK



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: BAMF Q, F/M, M/M, Post-SPECTRE, SPECTRE Fix-It, Sassy Q, Shocked James
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-09-14 17:48:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9196664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CMDAK/pseuds/CMDAK
Summary: A lot of things change in two years, no matter how much James Bond tries to deny that. MI6 is -shockingly - more competent, R&D department has a building all to itself, R insists that she's the new Q despite her being perceived by James as a moody teenager and nothing else, James loses his designated number, and Q is a double oh agent who hates his guts.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I bumped into a picture of an original character that reminded me of a badass Q and while I was torn between mob-boss-that-you-don't-want-to-cross!Q and double-oh-agent!Q, the sweet Hive Mind all voted for 00Q.
> 
> And who says that I have too many unfinished multichaptered fics? Because I don't. They lie.
> 
> Enjoy!

In two years, a country could change not only rules, but regimes. In two years, a child could learn how to walk, talk, or go from a happy and clueless middle-schooler to a moody, misunderstood high-schooler. And yet, for some strange reason, James Bond thought that he was going to come back to the same old MI6.

 

He was sure that the new M was still considered ‘the new M’ and referred to as such, and that he was still a young sack full of sarcastic quips that matched him because he was surely still struggling to make that blasted letter his own. Miss Moneypenny could only be deadly, gorgeous, sneaky and unforgiving as always, so he didn’t really spare her a second thought – which she would probably sense and make him regret the day he dared to disrespect her in such a way.

 

And since old habits died hard, he had no doubt that 009 was still the perfect suck up he barely tolerated – and that he was secretly jealous of – who brought his gear back in pristine condition because heaven forbid the Quartermaster should give him the look of extreme disappointment and exasperation with which he was so familiar that he could painted that face with his eyes closed – if only he had a single talented bone in his body when it came to that.

 

As for the Quartermaster, the sweet, innocent, pun-loving boffin that always went out of his way for him despite promising to never do it again right before adding that he would honest to God let him die in a ditch the next time he misused the gadgets… Well, that Quartermaster would be a lot smarter by now, but just as forgiving as he had been the last time he saw him, when he slipped him the Aston keys and helped him get the car out of there without being seen.

 

“Sir? Sir, excuse me!” An unknown security guard called out as he ran after hi, struggling to pull out whatever lame weapon they had them carrying nowadays.

 

James only really stopped because he took pity on him when he almost tripped over his own feet. “Look, I don’t have time for this; I am pretty sure M is about to go in a meeting like all the other Ms before him and I would like to be reinstated before I end up being forced to sit in the same room as a really angry former agent whose hobby is throwing very sharp nail files at my head.”

 

He made to turn away, but the guard had quite a tight grip on his arm. “Look sir, I have no idea what you are going on about, but I am afraid that I am going to have to ask you to leave.”

 

It would have been really easy to break the man’s arms and legs, leave him whimpering on the floor in agony, turn him into a reminder why double oh agents, even retired ones, were not to be crossed, but he didn’t. He was sure that the man knew who he was even if he was a new hire – James could easily spot the earpiece he had – and he was sure that this was just a prank on Q’s part, a well-deserved slap in the face for the way he had abandoned them.

 

So instead, James easily plucked the little black dot from the man’s ear. “Q, you know that the scolding doesn’t really work if I am not getting it directly from you/” Nothing for a few moments and then just a little bit of static before the men that carried actual weapons and that were moving in on him started to pull back. “I’ll pop around as soon as Mallory is done attempting to chew me out, okay?”

 

He met no more resistance on his way up and, much to his surprise, Miss Moneypenny was also absent from her post and her stand in was a rather sour looking grape of a man who let his glasses slide down his nose a little before pointing to the cheapest chair James had ever seen outside of a torturing chamber. “Sit,” the grape instructed, cracking his knuckles – his fingers were still attached to his hand afterwards, what a shock – before pushing a button on his intercom. “Sir, _he_ ’s here. Should I let him bother you, or should I send him directly to R&D for refitting and renumbering?”

 

James’ eyes twitched. “Renumbering?”

 

The raising lifted a bonny finger to shush him – he somehow found a way to miss Eve even more than he already was. “ _Send him in_ ,” was the new M’s hesitant order and a wave of a skeletal hand did just that.

 

James instantly noticed how much Mallory had upgraded his office, the warm, wooden panels that were supposed to create a balance when one was faced with M’s coldness completely replaced by hospital-like white walls. Cold, hard marble had also taken the place of the somewhat fluffy carpet – which James always assumed was there to cushion the fall of those faint of heart – and the mahogany desk that made whoever sat behind it look like royalty was probably rotting somewhere in a damp MI6 storage unit because some braindead decorator decided that a glass desk was better.

 

“Mister Bond, I would say that it is a pleasure seeing you, but even I am not that good of a liar,” Mallory said as a greeting, narrowing his eyes. “What did you uncover this time and in how much trouble will we all be by the end of this self-appointed mission?”

 

“When have I been labelled as the harbingers of bad news?”

 

“The second you started working for us,” Mallory replied flatly, turning around and pushing a rather large stack of papers towards him. “Finish signing these and then present yourself of your own free will to Medical so get tested.” James arched his eyebrow and Mallory sighed, clicking his tongue. “Do take pity on my soul and spare me your supposedly intelligent quips and just get on with pestering the medical staff.”

 

He could show how much he had grown in these past two years, or he could carry on pushing his buttons because he missed doing so and because it was fun. “Is sweet Helga still terrorizing her patients and making people bet on whether or not she’s Mengele’s descendant?”

 

“Bond,” Mallory growled warningly, starting to tap the glass desk with his pen.

 

Given that the growl was in the wrong tone and the tapping did not spell the usual death threat he received from M, James took it as an open invitation to carry on with. “A ‘yes’ to that question then, so clearly no one will dare to use my age as an argument against me getting the 007 status—”

 

“You _might_ be getting the double oh status, but you most definitely aren’t going to get your old designation back,” Mallory cut him off, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards for a fraction of a moment, showing his full enjoyment of James’ shocked, appalled, and insulted expression. “Quickly run along to Medical before you get stuck with ‘666’ as your designated number.”

 

There was no such designation because it was impossible to have that many active agents at the same time – although, if they started numbering _everyone_ that worked for and in MI6, he maybe might get that number. Then again, his time for being a smartass had ran out, so pointing out the flaw in the man’s roundabout way of calling him _the_ devil was out of the question.

 

“Who stole my number?” However, he had more than enough time to track down the man or woman and convince them to decide that ‘007’ wasn’t a number that fir them.

 

Mallory closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath. “Bond, if you carry on like this, you’ll have to go to the unemployment office instead of Medical.”

 

One very annoying visit to the most hated part of MI6 later and James was dizzily making his way to Q’s domain. He didn’t recognize anyone he passed by and no one spared him a second glance – or even a first greeting – but James was too busy taking in the way the new old building looked like to really notice that.

 

He tilted his head back and whistled as he entered the Quartermaster’s office, slowly twirling to take in the full sight of the skylight that had been installed. “I must say, Q, I never pegged you as someone who would—” He cut himself off when he came face to face with something that he could only refer to as a moody teenaged tomato, if the red hair, scowl, and the clothes that were somehow even more colourful and mismatched than what Q tended to wear were any indication. “Who the bloody hell are you?”

 

“Q,” the teenager said simply.

 

“Pull the other one,” James muttered. “Q is male of legal working age – unlike you – has messy hair, and corny jokes. You’re _maybe_ R, I am not quite sure.”

 

The woman huffed and rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not, but the fact remains that I am the former R and the new Quartermaster. Well, not really new as I’ve been that for the past two years, but on a technical level, I am new for…”

 

She kept on talking, but James just tuned her out. He was going to assume just for a minute that this woman-child wasn’t in on a well-deserved cruel prank – office didn’t smell like tea, it was tidy, it wasn’t covered in kitschy knickknacks that agents tried to pass to the man as gifts, no blueprints covering every inch of the office – and she was saying the truth. If and only if that was the truth, that means that something had happened to Q not long after he had went on his extended vacation.

 

“I want the list,” he said softly and slowly, flexing his fingers. “The list of people who failed to protect Q—”

 

“ _I_ am Q,” the moody and very annoying teenager intervened and James signalled her to be quiet because it was quite rude to interrupt your elders.

 

“—of those who hurt him and of those who left those who hurt him live,” he continued, now actively looking around for a good weapon. “I’ll also need you to keep quiet about this, of course, and help since I am not in the system just yet. On that note, I’m going to need the name of whoever thought himself worthy enough of the ‘007’ title.”

 

She instantly started to laugh, hunching over her desk. “As if anyone could really nab the Quartermaster that easily,” she wheezed out and then suddenly turned serious. “Granted, Spectre almost did away with him that one time, but it was your fault.”

 

“What?”

 

R – never Q; she will never ever be Q, not as long as he lived – furrowed her brows in deep though, spinning around in her chair for a good minute before something obviously dawned on her. “Oh, that’s right; you left before the clandestine mission report was presented and you had no idea that he was almost kidnapped while in Austria.”

 

A few deep breaths and counting back down from ten did little to help get rid of the red dots of anger, as Madeleine had ‘lovingly’ called them. “I want a list—”

 

“You’re like a broken record.” And R had a really nasty habit of interrupting dangerous people. “He was fine, the people were dealt with accordingly thanks to the, at that time, new 007 and 009, and you honestly came here for nothing because I am not going to add you to our system and you are stuck with being 013 until further notice.”

 

Did she honestly think that he was going to leave before finding out what happened to Q? He might have been a prick to the man most of the times, managed to ruin more gadgets than he was given, nicked a few things here and there that might have caused just a little bit of trouble for the man, and indisposed him at ungodly hours with, but he still respected and cared for him. Furthermore, other than Eve, Q was his closest friend in the world – maybe even more since he was the only one he said goodbye to, picking up of his Aston notwithstanding.

 

“Where’s _my_ Quartermaster now?”

 

A beep came from one of the many pockets and she glanced at her phone, a thin smile spreading on her lips before focusing back on him again. “She’s right in front of you, Bond, but I will hold back from forcing you to get your eyes tested again just because I can since I’ve just been informed that the ‘new’ 007 is in the building.”

 

It suddenly became very clear to him that this boffin needed to learn that he was the most stubborn creature in the known universe and that he was impossible to distract from the goal he set for himself. “If I am blind,” he started, making himself very comfortable in the chair, “then you are deaf. Now, where is the young man that put his job on the line for me almost constantly and the only person after the Major that I recognize as the Quartermaster?”

 

“Seek out the one who took your number,” she insisted in a mystical sort of way and she continued to do so until James decided to leave because his head was about to explode.

 

He had his ways of finding out what had happened to Q and where he was, from bribing Miss Moneypenny to heavily implying to certain boffins that he was not above being their terrifying shadow until he obtained the information he sought. The whole thing was probably going to take him a few days, mostly a week, but he struggled to see this as a good thing. On one hand, it will allow him to get reacquainted with the staff and he was sure that Q was alive and safe because he wasn’t sedated and tied to a bed. On the other hand, he was going to be tormented by the possibility that he might have been harmed somehow and thus, decided to retire.

 

Either way, he was sure that everything will end with him having a list of people he needed to pay his special kind of visits. But before he could actually start on that list, he caught a glimpse of a familiar mop of messy brown hair and he stopped dead in his tracks, relieved and shocked at the same time.

 

He had joked in the past about the Quartermaster’s suits, but the one he was wearing had him doubt the fact that he was currently being side glanced with what had to be cruel amusement by Q. For starters, the suit was the tight kind and the man had told him once that he absolutely hated those because it restricted his movement – and yet Q didn’t seem to have any issue with that anymore.

 

Then there was the fact that it was an obviously expensive black three piece suit which he tied together with an ivory tie, and a dark purple shirt. There was a crooked silver belt buckle that peeked out from under the fine black waistcoat – no pocket watch chain hanging from said waistcoat, which was a shame – and the crowning jewel seemed to be the gloves that the man was wearing in the middle of the overly warm summer.    

 

“Q—”

 

“How lovely it was to hear that you plan on being active once again, Bond,” Q interrupted him, calling the elevator. “I must sadly inform you that your number is now mine, so I suggest that you scurry off to your little island paradise and leave the spying to me, as you did for the past two years. After all, geek is the new chic and I am the epitome of that and, mixed together with the fact that I actually try to follow a plan when I am on a mission, means that I am just perfect for the double oh position.”

 

He slid in the elevator, cruel smirk on, and the doors closed before Bond managed to get a single word out or remember how to close his mouth and breathe.


	2. Chapter 2

Two years later, and just the sight of Bond still got to him. Two years after he had forced himself into accepting that the man had been nothing more than a toxic person who he thought to be a friend that used him constantly and he still felt his insides turn when those blue eyes were focused on him and that pissed the hell out of him.

 

“I can’t believe he had the gall to walk up to me like nothing happened,” he growled and poured himself another glass of 20 year old whiskey before throwing his glasses on the bedside table and sitting down on his bed.

 

His naked friend quickly started to caress his arms she pushed her silicon-improved breasts against his back in an obvious attempt to make him feel better. “I am more than ready and capable of making you forget whatever horrible thing happened to you today, darling,” she purred and slipped her tongue in his ear to get her point across.

 

Not that she had to insist as Q had reached the very healthy conclusion that he could easily fuck his frustration and anger away if he found the right bed partner – after all, that was what all his colleagues were doing, so why shouldn’t he? And this woman was more than willing to play a little rough, digging her sharp nails in his back until she drew blood as she begged him between pants and moans to move faster or hold his position.

 

“Oh, but darling,” he growled as he squeezed her breasts and bit down hard on her ear, “then you would be done and we can’t have that now can we?” He grinned down at her as he slowly arched into her, tutting at her when she hit his ass with her heels. “You’re breaking the rules, darling.”

 

“But I want more,” she growled at him, fisting her hands in his hair and tugging. “And I want it now!” She demanded, forgetting her idea when Q moved again. “Like that, love, just like that,” she gasped out and was brought to a whimpering mess of pleasure not a minute later.

 

Q was done not much longer after that and rolled off of her immediately, light up a cigarette so he could truly bask in the afterglow. “Feel free to take the shower with me to preserve some water, darling,” he told her, drumming his fingers over the leg se had wrapped around his middle.

 

She joined him, of course, but he was denied enjoying her body for a second time by the building’s doorman calling up to inform him that a very persistent man by the name of James Bond wanted to see him. “ _I have tried to physically stop him, sir, but he easily shrugged me off and got into the elevator_. _Would you like me to block it between the floors until the police get here?”_

 

How typical of the bastard to ruin his day after he had worked so hard to make it pleasant again. “No need to call them,” mostly because the call would be redirected to MI6 and he really did not want to deal with all the paperwork that followed such an action. “I’ll deal with him myself, but thank you for giving me a heads up,” he grumbled, hanging up before the poor man could apologize again. “We’re having uninvited guests over, darling, so I do hope you won’t mind if I’ll keep you here for a bit after they’re gone,” he called over his shoulder and pulled on the first pair of pants and shirt his eyes landed on.

 

He couldn’t stop himself from hoping for the elevator’s cables to snap so the man would plummet to his death, but the second glass of whiskey made him feel less bad about thinking that. In fact, why shouldn’t he wish ill upon the twat that was marching his tight ass up to his apartment to demand his designated number back? It was the least he could do to the bloody bastard that made him lose so many hours of sleep slaving over equipment he ever got back and who also gave him an ulcer with all the stupid shit he pulled.

 

“And of course he’d try to break into my apartment instead of ringing the doorbell,” he muttered as he emptied his glass and deactivated the security system – not that he didn’t want to see Bond convulsing in absolute pain and maybe even piss his pants if the voltage was high enough, but the paperwork for that was even more massive than if the police had gotten involved.

 

Bond managed to jimmy the door open in less than a minute and he looked greatly displeased with that. “You’d think you’d have a sturdier lock on this thing now that you are playing the role of a spy, or at least a tier one agent as your doorman.”

 

Q arched his eyebrow at him, regretting a little that he didn’t let him experience his security system first hand. “To what do I owe this great displeasure, 013? And do keep it concise and to the point; you’re much too old to waste any time on long rants. Not to mention that these carpets are brand new, so please don’t die on them.”

 

But Bond’s attention had shifted from him to the blond woman that had stepped out of the shower and rested her arms against his shoulder – and what shocked Q was the fact that it seemed the man was glaring at her instead of presenting her with his honeypot mission smile.

 

And although she was blond, his companion wasn’t dumb. “I don't like the way your friend is looking at me,” whispered, placing an open mouth kiss on his exposed chest. “Should I try to cheer him up on my own or would he like to join us back in the shower?”

 

Q wrapped his right arm around her middle and pulled her close, brushing his lips against her forehead. “Doesn’t she have just the most wonderful ideas in the universe, Bond?” He asked, caressing her backside. “The threesome is off the table, darling,” she pouted, but then turned her hungry gaze on the intruder. “But should I offer her to you as a welcome back gift, Bond? Or did your dick finally shrivel and fall off?” He turned her around in his arms, biting down on her shoulder as she giggled and licked her lips. “Don’t worry darling; if he fails to satisfy you, you know that I can more than step up to the plate.”

 

Bond looked like a fish what with the way his mouth opened and shot a few times, visibly uncomfortable and obviously looking for the right words. And oh, how much Q regretted it that there were no cameras to catch the glorious moment in which one of MI6’s supposedly best agents had a hard time finding his words.

 

“We’ll discuss when you don’t have company over,” Bond eventually muttered, looking away when the woman shoved her tongue down Q’s throat. But it was codded in his DNA to get the last laugh, so just before he closed the door, he turned around. “And get a better—”

 

“She’s already on her knees and my zipper is done, so unless you turned into a voyeur because you couldn’t satisfy Miss Swann or because the only way you could get off with her was watching someone else doing it, you best leave right now.” Q interrupted Bond’s quip, bursting out laughing at how fast the door closed and helping the woman get up, planting a kiss on top of her hand. “You were wonderful, darling. Then again, you do know what I love.”

 

Chuckling and pushing herself against Q once again, she dragged her well-manicured finger down his naked chest. “And that’s why I visit you more often than the other ones. Now, about that joint shower…”

 

***

 

James sat in his car for about ten minutes before his brain started working again and then needed another five until he fully processed that Q now owned a six-pack. However, he refused to acknowledge that he had borne witness to the younger man acting like a true double oh agent back from a recent mission because that would mean accepting that Q had changed so much in these two years that he might as well be someone else with his face.

 

But what bothered him the most wasn’t the fact that Q got himself a _special friend_ just like he had all over the world or the fact that he treated him like trash – especially since he deserved to be treated like that and he’d never find it in himself to hold anything against Q – but that he had willingly put himself in danger. Q was now part the front-line troops; his genius man who could take down the world with the push of a button while waiting in his pyjamas for his Earl Grey to be done, had hanged up that lab coat he refused to wear in favour of wielding the weapons he built and it looked like he was doing all of this with MI6’s blessing.

 

Still, he had to admit that Q looked and acted like he could hold his ground. Not once in their brief meetings did he look down, sag his shoulders, worried his lower lip, looked away from him, or stuttered and although Q know that he never had to fear him and he never held back for ripping him a new one when he felt like it was needed, many of his fellow double ohs tended to shy away in fear at the sight of him, so this further proved his theory that the his Quartermaster – always his Quartermaster, never a pawn – had balls twice the size of Jupiter.

 

“Dial Eve Moneypenny,” he ordered his car’s computer, hoping that the number he had was still the one she used as he pulled over to the side of the road and rested his face up against the steering wheel. He had a strong suspicion that the headache he was feeling was a karmatic revenge for the ones he hadn’t meant to give to Q.

 

“ _Whatever you want to ask me after 2 years of blessed silence, the answer is no,”_ she said even before James realized that the phone had been answered. “ _If you stumbled onto anything, please follow the correct MI6 protocols—”_

 

“Did you have a hand in helping Q chose his double oh clothes?” James asked directly, making Eve choke on whatever she was about to say. “Because they are a perfect for him if I do say so myself, but they do not strike me as the kind of clothes he would chose for himself even if he’s no longer hidden in MI6’s metaphorical basement.”

 

She let out a cold, bitter laugh and James imagined her pinching the bridge of her nose as she did when something frustrated her beyond belief. “ _He’s smart enough to know on his own that the colourful, breezy clothes he wore weren’t made for fieldwork. But I must admit that I had sent him to **your** tailor to get his wardrobe changed.”_

“Couldn’t you have sent him to someone to change his mind?” James asked, although the second he heard those words leave his mouth, he knew the answer and namely that a person who could do that had not yet been born. If Q set his mind on something, he got it done no matter how dangerous it was or how many of his precious rules he had to break. “Or at least convince M about how horrible of an idea it is to allow your most precious asset to become a moving target?”

 

“ _Don’t you think that I tried that?”_ she hissed at him. “ _I even tried to remind him of how horrified he had been when those Spectre agents almost got him at the ski lift in Austria_ ,” so this is what R had been talking about earlier today and James had to admit that finding out Q had almost been kidnapped while he was a few minutes behind him hurt more than the time he had been ducked in a tank full of electric eels after his nails had been ripped out, “ _or of the time the bullet embedded itself a millimetre away from his face in the car chase, but that only made him more determined to become an agent.”_

 

The more she explained, the harder James hit his dashboard. It wasn’t her place to say what had made Q so cold, admitting to doubting that James would ever find out the exact reasons, but the idea of becoming an agent had embedded itself in Q’s mind roughly about two months after he had quit.

 

Of course M had been against the idea, but Q left R in charge and went rogue for two weeks, returning with numbers 2 to 5 as well has 7 from Spectre and securing his 007 status with the help of Number 8’s and 9’s deaths. “ _He was white as a sheet when he strolled into the building, hands shaking as he presented M with the proof that those two deaths had been a result of his direct involvement. But he had gotten the job done and R had successfully kept all the agents we had in the field alive—”_

 

“And since MI6 needed a new 007, M had no other choice but to name him that,” James finished for her, running his hands down his face. “Is he good in the field?”

 

“ _Though it pains me to admit it, he’s truly wonderful,”_ she breathed out. “ _He had quite a lot of bruises and a few broken ribs, so M kept him grounded while 009 gave him hand-to-hand combat training_ ,” of course he did, the little bastard. He just had to be a brownnoser even when Q was no longer the Quartermaster which meant that he needed to have a long overdue conversation with him that included his head and a reinforced wall or two. “ _James, I will stress the fact that Q is still very territorial of his agents and even though I suspect that you got a number or else you wouldn’t have known about the change of career, if you so much as sketch a frown in 009’s direction, you will be dead for him._ ”

 

James had the distinct impression that Q was already seeing him as nothing more than a ghost and that hurt more than any torture he had been put through.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are love <3


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